by Lopez, Rob
“You’ll be okay, Barbara.”
“Screw you. I seen you shoot.”
The gang crept forward, gun barrels wavering as they moved.
“Get back or I’ll blow her head off,” warned April.
“Oh sweet Jesus, don’t do it,” said Barbara, shutting her eyes.
“Everybody just hold still,” pleaded Sally.
“Put the gun down,” shouted the gang member.
“One more step and she gets it,” said April.
“Stay where you are, you idiots,” called Barbara.
Events moved inexorably with a painful momentum of their own, and Sally had the wind knocked out of her as Barbara dived on her. Falling down, Sally heard the crack of gunfire and the deafening boom of the shotgun.
*
April opened fire when she saw Barbara move, but she was afraid of hitting Sally, so she fired high. The return fire from the others splintered the wall by her head and she ducked back around the corner of the building, racking another cartridge into the chamber.
She was stuck and she knew it. She’d taken a trip to the bathroom when the militia had arrived, and had sneaked up alongside the building when she heard the commotion. Fearing they might find Scott and Daniel, she debated what she should do, but it was a no brainer when she heard them try to take Sally away. She had to do something. Upon seeing Harvey lying on the ground, however, without a weapon, she realized she was fighting alone.
The thought that this wasn’t going to end well crossed her mind, and she started to panic. Automatic fire chewed up the wood on the corner of the building, and it was clearly only a matter of time before they recovered from their shock and moved in on her. They might even split up and circle around behind her. Frantically looking both ways, she tried to work out the best strategy for herself, but up until now, tactics had been the domain of Rick and Scott, who’d been trained for this sort of thing. She thought she might have learned something from them, but now that she was faced with a decision to make, any useful tips she might have picked up were driven from her mind. There didn’t seem any way she was going to get out of this.
Movement caught her eye, and she saw one of the militia leaning out to get a shot at her. Pointing the shotgun quickly, she let off a shot, missing completely. The militiaman opened fire, hosing her position as she flattened herself against the wall. Bullets thwacked into the wood and kicked up dirt as her shaking hands racked another cartridge, and she fired again.
The militiaman jerked, throwing a hand up to his eye, and pulled back out of sight.
April sank down as her knees gave way, trembling so much that she could barely rack the slide on the shotgun.
*
Scott was in a daze when he heard the automatic fire. The antibiotics had killed the fever, but he was still weak and under nurse’s orders to sleep as much as possible. The crackle of battle, however, roused him instantly, and he didn’t need to ask himself what was going on. Years of combat experience triggered immediate action. Grabbing his Glock from the nightstand, he rolled out of the bunk and landed heavily on the floor. The impact caused him to see stars, and his vision blurred, but he caught a glimpse of Daniel curled up in the corner.
“Down,” he mouthed to the boy, indicating with the palm of his hand that he should lie flat on the floor.
Daniel, his eyes wide, complied, and Scott slid over to the door, reaching up for the handle. As the door swung open, he slumped, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. Outside, the volume of fire increased, joined by the bang of the shotgun, and he could feel the vibrations through the floor as rounds smacked into the building. Grabbing the door frame, he lifted himself up and staggered out of the room. Down the other end, the patients hauled themselves out of bed and threw themselves down. Scott took a step onwards, but his legs wouldn’t hold him and he collapsed again. Gritting his teeth, he dragged himself along the floor toward the gunfire.
*
Sally flinched as bullets flew over her prone body. She didn’t dare move in case someone decided she was a target, but the thought that everyone was shooting at April appalled her, and she shouted out, “Cease fire. You’re shooting at a pregnant woman.”
It wasn’t clear whether the militia didn’t hear her, or simply didn’t care. They carried on firing in an orgy of ammunition expenditure, simply targeting the corner of the building, which was starting to smoke from the impacts.
Sally gave up on staying still and tried to crawl away. Almost immediately a hand fell across her neck and a gun barrel was pressed into her side.
“I got you,” hissed Barbara, lifting up a bloodied face. She looked insane. “Now you get on up and do as I say.”
With all the bullets flying, getting up was the last thing Sally wanted to do, but Barbara was insistent. As they both stood up, however, the others stopped firing.
“There’s only one of them,” shouted Barbara to her gang. “Let’s finish this.”
She pushed Sally toward the chewed up corner. “Stay in front of me,” she snarled.
Sally struggled, but the gun was pressed harder into her side, and the horrible woman’s grip was like iron. Steadily, she pushed Sally into view of April.
April was crouched down, too frightened to shoot and dumbstruck at the sight of Sally as a hostage.
“You drop that gun, or your friend here gets it,” said Barbara.
Sally knew what the likely outcome of that would be, and shook her head silently, imploring April not to do it.
“I’m gonna count to three,” barked Barbara.
April stared, indecisive, and Sally tensed herself to do the one thing that she could.
She would spin herself around and try and pull Barbara with her, reversing their positions so that April could get a shot. If April would react quick enough.
Sally bent her knees, preparing to whirl, when a rifle cracked and there was a sickening thud close to her ear. Barbara’s grip slackened and Sally looked to see Barbara slide down with a neat bullet hole in the middle of her forehead, a look of utter surprise on the woman’s face.
Sally didn’t understand what happened, but when the rest of Barbara’s gang opened fire again, she sprinted around the corner to join April.
*
Teebar had taken cover behind the large cook pot in the compound. He witnessed Barbara push forward, but he didn’t answer her call to advance. This whole thing had become so messed up that he wasn’t willing to risk his life. Instead he watched.
He saw the exit wound open up at the back of Barbara’s head, and had enough sense to realize that it weren’t no shotgun that killed her. The angle seemed all wrong too, and it took a moment for Teebar to work it out.
“Someone’s shooting from the woods,” he cried.
It was the last thing he ever said. A high velocity round fired from up the hill ricocheted off the pot and into his face. The pot clanged like a bell, and if Teebar had ever possessed poetic leanings, he would have said that it tolled for him. But Teebar could barely read, and he was dead before he hit the ground anyway.
*
Mud didn’t see Teebar go down, but Barbara’s demise was enough to tell him that sticking around out here wasn’t safe.
As far as he was concerned, the hag got what she deserved, but he wasn’t about to share the same fate. The nearest best cover was the building itself. Grabbing his bag, he got up and sprinted for the open door.
*
Inch by inch, Scott dragged himself along the floor with his elbows, the pain in his abdomen increasing as the effort pulled on his stomach muscles. Grinding his teeth, Scott kept going, his eyes watering. The distance to the far end of the cabin seemed to get longer and longer, the doorway at the end hazier and brighter as his peripheral vision darkened. The shooting and the shouting receded to a vague background noise, and the Glock in his sweating hand felt less secure and in danger of slipping from his grasp. His temples pounded with his heart rate, and it felt like his head was going to explode. Blinking hard, he stretched out hi
s arms and strained to pull himself forward a little more, his arms shaking as they milked the last dregs of his strength.
The bright light of the doorway dimmed as something large blotted it out. Scott made out the vague outline of a man and felt the vibrations of footsteps on the boards through his chest. He heard the tiny but recognizable sound of a magazine being slammed home and a bolt being drawn back, then the posture of the figure changed, and a dim part of Scott’s consciousness knew he was going to fire a weapon. Time slowed down, and with aching slowness he brought his Glock to bear, aiming as best he could at center mass, though he couldn’t see his own gun sight. A terrifying ripping sound echoed in the cabin, and Scott squeezed his trigger. The floor vibrated like it was being taken apart by a buzzsaw, and objects struck Scott’s face and back. Muscle memory and instinct kept him repeating his trigger pulls, the Glock getting lighter as each round left the barrel, the next one being pushed up the magazine to join it, but the sounds became more distant, and the darkness more opaque, until Scott lost consciousness and could see no more.
*
Harvey, from his position on the ground, saw Mud enter the cabin, and Mud exit the cabin, tumbling backwards down the steps, shirt covered in blood.
It had been frustrating for him, feeling he could do nothing without a weapon, but only two militiamen remained now, and as Mud’s body finally hit the dirt, Harvey figured now was the best time to act. Nearby was a discarded shovel. The closest militiaman to him had only a loose grip on his gun. He’d been wounded and was still clutching his face. The other militiaman was farther away, using Teebar’s body as cover from whoever had been shooting from the hill.
Drawing a deep breath, Harvey launched himself up, stooping to grab the shovel as he ran and, charging at the wounded militiaman, lifted the shovel over his shoulder and swung it down in a single movement the moment he reached him.
The militiaman barely had time to glance up before the shovel connected with the side of his head with such force that he was lifted out of his crouch and stretched out across the dirt, hitting the ground like a felled tree.
Harvey wrestled with the strap of the man’s weapon, trying to get it clear of the body. The other militiaman, seeing he was now alone, decided to make a run for it. Harvey lifted the weapon, but, unfamiliar with assault rifles, fumbled with the safety, not realizing it was already off.
In the few seconds it took him to get it right, the militiaman had made it to the car, which still had its engine running. Hitting the gas, the militiaman sped off, momentum shutting his door for him. Harvey took aim, tracking the vehicle in his sights, and opened fire, holding down the trigger.
There was only half a magazine left, and the bullets spewed out fast, striking all over the car and puncturing the front tire. The vehicle veered off the track, down a grassy slope and straight into the lake without stopping.
Harvey searched among the other bodies for a fresh magazine, then gave up, simply picking up another weapon and dashing as fast as he could to the lake. Which, for him, wasn’t all that fast, so he was out of breath when he got there.
He needn’t have bothered hurrying. The car was just visible beneath the surface, and the driver hadn’t gotten out. A wispy cloud of blood indicated why.
Harvey waited for his heart rate to reach a normal speed before going back up to the cabins to check on Sally and April. He found them still in a state of shock.
“Check on the patients,” Sally told Harvey. “I heard firing in there.”
Harvey too had heard and witnessed Mud opening fire inside, but he hadn’t yet figured out what he’d been firing at, or how he came to get shot himself. Going up the steps, he went into the cabin, expecting a massacre, but he was immediately greeted by the astonished faces of patients peering up over their beds. Harvey sighed with relief.
Then he saw the distant body of Scott.
“Oh God, no,” he said, hurrying forward.
When he reached Scott, his worst fears were realized. There were bullet holes in the floor around him and he was showered in wood splinters. Scott lay still, a trickle of blood seeping out from beneath his body. The Glock had slipped from his fingers, the rack slid back. Somehow he’d emptied the entire magazine before he was hit.
“Sally! Get in here quick.”
Harvey turned him over and Scott just flopped in his arms. He checked for a pulse, but couldn’t feel anything.
“Sally!”
Sally came running up, with April close behind.
“He’s got no pulse,” said Harvey.
Sally took over, putting two fingers to Scott’s neck. “Yes he has,” she said.
She ripped open Scott’s pajamas, looking for bullet wounds. All she found was the original wound under the bandage, which had opened up again. “He hasn’t been hit. He’s just torn his stitches.”
Harvey looked at the carnage caused by the Mac-10. “How in hell did he not get hit?”
April cradled Scott’s head, desperately trying to revive him.
“Help me get him up onto a bunk,” said Sally.
Harvey lifted Scott into the nearest bed. Sally applied a fresh compress and bandage to the wound. Daniel came to the bed, his face impassive as usual, but Harvey noticed he had his hands clasped together in prayer. The kid seemed to do that a lot now, and Harvey figured that was a good thing. He could tell from Sally’s demeanor, however, that she didn’t think Scott’s condition was critical.
“I’m gonna check on the guy I knocked out,” Harvey told Sally. “If you need anything, yell.”
Outside, Harvey paused for a moment. His hands started to shake. He hadn’t given himself time to process what had happened, and his body had lost patience, doing his processing for him. He’d been in some tough scrapes in the previous months, and thought he’d gotten used to it. He’d perhaps slipped into the trap of thinking that the worst was over, and he’d gotten calmer helping Sally run the clinic. Considering it was the briefest firefight he’d been involved with, he thought he’d be able to brush it off more easily than the full-scale battles he’d been in, but the intensity hit him with the same force, and he realized he was getting tired of it all. Like it should have ended by now. The thought that all that crap was about to start up again drained him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a figure emerging from the woods, and he lifted his rifle. It was Red, casually cradling his scoped rifle like a hunter examining his latest kill.
“That you shooting from the hill?” asked Harvey.
“Sure was,” said Red, looking way more relaxed than Harvey felt. “You didn’t think we’d leave you hanging, did you?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“Don’t worry about it, bro. We’re watching over you.”
“Rick with you?”
“Nah, he’s off doing stuff. Why?”
“Scott’s bad again. Dragged himself out of his room and nailed one of the bad guys. Managed to rip his wound open.”
“Wouldn’t be like him not to.”
“That all you’ve got to say?”
“Sure. What else is there?”
Harvey watched Red examine the bullet hole through Barbara’s head, nodding a little, as if pleased he’d got it straight through the middle. He might as well have been examining a paper target. Harvey observed that, unlike himself, Red had adjusted to the idea of the long haul, and wasn’t thinking of the end yet. Today was just another day, and there’d be plenty more like them.
To think like that was to know that there was more to come, and Harvey wondered what plans were afoot that he didn’t know about.
“Nice hit with the shovel, back there,” said Red, not looking up.
That reminded Harvey of what he’d come out for, and he went over to check on the motionless militiaman, keeping his gun on him in case he woke up. When he bent down to feel his pulse, however, he detected nothing.
“Dead?” called Red.
“I don’t know. I checked Scott the same way and
got it wrong, so I don’t know if I’m doing it right.”
Red came over and gave the militiaman’s head a kick, knocking it easily to an unnatural angle. “He’s dead,” confirmed Red. He looked up to watch a crowd of people, led by Doug, coming from Bergen Mountain. “Help’s arrived. Time to move your patients out of here.”
“Where to?” said Harvey defensively.
“Got three camps on the other side of Iron Mountain. Packy can ferry the worst cases as far as Newberry Creek, but that’ll take a while, so we got stretchers to get the others out of here in the meantime.”
“Sally’s not going to like that.”
“Ain’t asking, just telling. We’ve knocked out a militia patrol. You think they’re going to leave you alone now? We gotta move fast, because there’s no telling what’s going to come down that track next, and we can’t hold this position.”
When Doug’s group arrived, Red began giving orders. “You two,” he said, pointing to an armed couple, “get up the track to the end of the lake and watch the fork. Anything comes up there, you delay them.”
The couple didn’t seem surprised by the orders, and simply marched off to carry them out. Harvey saw that Doug’s group already had stretchers among them. He got the sense that everyone was working to a previously agreed plan.
“What’s going on?” murmured Harvey to Doug.
“It’s the evacuation,” said Doug, like it was obvious.
“But what’s with these camps? Where did they come from?”
“Oh, we’ve been preparing them. Rick’s orders. We’ve even moved the bees up there. Beautiful location, but one hell of a climb. Not sure I can manage it too many times, but oldies like me get the benefit of a ride from Packy, which isn’t much of a benefit, believe me. Got more gray hairs from that than from anything else. Heaven knows how the bees survived the journey, but we did our best. We’ve got a clinic all ready for you.”
“You built a clinic?”
“Not quite as good as this one, obviously, but there’s a lot of work gone into it. Rick said we needed one anyway for the campaign.”
“Campaign?”
“Yes, didn’t he tell you?”